


Sacrifice

by spockandawe



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Devotion, Established Relationship, Head Injury, Injury, Love, M/M, Scars, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 11:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amon can't bear to see his Lieutenant throwing everything he has into the revolution. He's covered with scars and half-healed wounds, but he refuses to let Amon coerce a waterbender into healing him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacrifice

He throws everything he has into this. My lieutenant outpaces men half his age, sacrifices his own body for the cause, and returns to stand before me with blood slowly dripping to the floor until all his soldiers have been cared for. I am grateful for this mask because there are times I can hardly stop myself from reaching out to support him, never mind control my expression. In those moments I curse the role I play, an idol separated by necessity from the rank and file. I cannot betray such concern over one man's wounds when so many have and will give far more.

The nights are better. A door links our quarters that remains carefully closed during the day and we go separately go to our individual rooms every evening. It's an even guess as to who slips into the other's room first, but I cannot remember the last time we were both there and slept separately. A long time ago I couldn't have imagined sleeping wearing my mask, but I'll gladly take that small discomfort if I can fold myself into his arms and twine my fingers with his as I doze off.

In the early days our nights were filled with heat and passion, but that is harder to find now. Too often I lie on the bed listening to him breathe shallowly as he tries to sleep through the pain, or watch him clumsily reach out to me as he tries to push through a haze of medicine. I've asked him many times if we can find a waterbender to heal him, but he always refuses. One bad night I found him collapsed on the floor just on the other side of the door. That night I made a decision. I began sleeping with a glass of water next to the bed.

Now I wait until he drifts off to sleep and do what I can to tend to his wounds. Healing never came to me as naturally as bloodbending, but I work as long and carefully as I must to ease his pain. It kills me that I must not heal him completely, but I do what I can. I speed the healing of cracked ribs, bind together the knife cuts hidden under bandages. It is a difficult thing to do. He would never forgive me if he knew, but there is no way that I can stop. One night he had been badly concussed and I was unsure whether he was asleep or unconscious, and I spent at least an hour leaning over his head and trying to reason out how I had to bend the water to heal brain injuries. I was so caught up in the task I didn't notice him waking up and had to bend the water over the edge of the bed instead of back into the glass. My heart was pounding with the fear that I had been discovered, but he only blinked sleepily, smiled, and reached up to run his fingers down the side of my mask. In that moment I knew that I would never stop healing him.

When I look at him, I see more lines on his face than there used to be. My lieutenant is not as young as he once was and it makes my heart ache to see him leaving time and again to fight and bleed for the revolution. He is covered with a network of angry red scars, new wounds lying over the old, and my fingers trace their paths gently, apologetically. He gives his body for our cause, and I betray our cause to heal his body. As much as I understand the hypocrisy of my decision, I do not regret it for a second. I used to believe that I would sacrifice my own bending after I had seen to all other benders in the world. That is no longer true. I will give up my bending only when I cease to fear for the life of this man who sleeps by my side.


End file.
